The Scoundrel's Bride (6 page)

Hazy light stole into the livery’s interior through the open door, and Morality peered into the early morning gloom. “Patrick?” she softly called.

After a pause, the boy replied in a croak, “Morality? Is it morning already?”

“Afraid so.” She stepped inside, and when her eyes adjusted to the minimal amount of light, she spotted the shadow burrowed against a stack of baled hay. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

Patrick groaned, whether at the endearment or due to his physical state she couldn’t say. He sat up and slowly twisted his head from side to side. Grimacing, he said, “My head aches something fierce.” Then, half under his breath, he added, “But at least I’m not seeing things anymore.”

“You had the nightmares again?” Morality pressed her hand against his brow to check for fever.

The boy shrugged. “Don’t know for sure. It was different this time, like I was having a dream, only I was awake. And it weren’t no good dream, neither.”

“Wasn’t a good dream,” Morality automatically corrected. She eyed him closely. “Should I go for the doctor?”

Patrick gave a bitter laugh. “Come on. Reverend Harrison would just love paying a doctor for seeing to me.” He pushed away from her and reached for his boots, all business with hardly a trace of boy in evidence. “I just need to move around a bit, I figure. Now, what are we doing today?”

Experience having taught her the uselessness of pursuing a subject once Patrick adopted that particular tone, Morality followed his lead by saying, “Reverend Uncle has handbills he wants you to post. I’m to gather morning-glory seeds to replenish his supply.”

“Again?”

“It’s that time of year.”

“What’s he do with them?”

“Have you never noticed the little bags he gives to members of the congregation upon occasion?”

Patrick shook his head.

“Reverend Uncle likes to spread physical beauty along with the spiritual sometimes.”

“Oh.” Patrick obviously wasn’t impressed.

Smiling slightly, Morality reached for her basket. “The handbills are in your room at the Marstons’.” She withdrew an apple and a large slice of cornbread and handed them to Patrick, adding, “I asked their cook to save you something hot for breakfast, but this will tide you over until then.”

The boy eyed her offering, then shook his head. “Thanks, but I don’t feel much like eating this morning.”

“Oh dear, you must be ill.” Her attempt at humor fell flat when Patrick wouldn’t meet her gaze, instead staring somewhere over her shoulder. Morality recognized well the face of guilt, she saw it nightly in the expressions of those who listened to Reverend Uncle. She hated seeing the look on this boy. “Patrick?”

In a low, hesitant tone, he asked, “Do you reckon that eating too much could make a fellow sick?”

Morality frowned. “But you missed supper.”

He looked down at the toes of his boots, then up at her. She watched his Adams apple bob before he said, “I swiped a loaf of bread, Morality.”

“Oh, Patrick.” She shut her eyes and shook her head. She’d thought they’d overcome this problem. It had taken some doing, but she’d believed she’d convinced the boy he was no longer at risk of starvation. She wanted to reach out and hug him. Instead, she asked, “From the Marston kitchen? You know, Patrick, while we’ve been invited to make ourselves at home, it’s still good manners to ask first. I guess there’s no harm done, but—”

“Not the Marstons. I didn’t swipe it from them.” Patrick lifted his blanket from the hay and began to fold it. “You see, Morality, after Reverend Harrison and Mr. Peterson left the library yesterday, well, I sort of fell asleep.”

“That’s why you missed supper,” she observed.

He nodded. “And I was late getting to meeting, too. I was powerful hungry.” He paused, hung his head, and added, “So I took one of the miracle loaves.”

Morality froze. He spoke of the bread served at the meetings to symbolize Christ’s loaves and fishes miracle. “You sure it wasn’t the unblessed bread?” Morality asked hopefully. Reverend Uncle’s reaction, should he notice the theft of a miracle loaf, wouldn’t bear contemplating.

“I’m sure,” Patrick replied with a nod. “I thought it was the regular stack at the time, Morality, not the miracle loaves. I didn’t think you’d mind if I ate that.” Anxiety glistened in his eyes as he asked, “You wouldn’t have, right?”

Morality thought her heart might well break then and there. “Oh, Patrick. You’re welcome to anything of mine— the food off my plate if you want. But the miracle loaves—”

He lifted his hat from a horse-stall post. As he brushed away a moth that had chosen the black felt for a resting place, he said, “Reverend Harrison’s mighty fussy about them.”

Morality winced. “Reverend Uncle is persnickety about all the items he uses in his ministry, the miracle loaves in particular. He consecrates them for use in the healing ritual, and he believes they hold great power.” She brushed a piece of straw from the boy’s shirt, then hesitated, waiting for him to look her in the eye. “Thank you for telling me, Patrick. Thanks for not lying about it.”

“I considered it,” he said, shrugging. “But after yesterday…well… I don’t want to make you mad again.”

Morality’s eyes stung. He truly was a sweet young man.

Patrick watched her closely, his eyes narrowing as she blinked away the tears. In an obvious effort to cheer her, he said, “Those must be some powerful prayers Reverend Harrison says. Eating that miracle loaf threw me worse’n a tot of white lightnin’.”

“Patrick Callahan!” Morality straightened her spine and played along with his game. “Why, if I ever find you sampling that devil’s brew, I’ll…I’ll…”

He laughed. “You’ll what, Morality? Try a little yourself?”

She gave him her very best glare until she couldn’t hold back her smile. “You are nothing but an ornery little boy. I simply don’t know what to do with you.” His cocky grin made Morality feel as if the sun had burned through the clouds.

They chatted amiably as he gathered his gear. As they left the livery together, Morality noted that Cottonwood Creek had come to life during the time she’d spent with Patrick inside the stable. Although the sky hung gray and low over Main Street, it didn’t appear to dampen the mood of the townspeople. Pedestrians bustled and wagons rumbled about their business. Male guffaws escaped the walls of the shaving saloon, and children skipped along the boardwalk on their way to the schoolhouse, gingham-covered lunch pails on their arms.

Morality returned the shy smile of a young girl she recognized from yesterday’s revival meeting, and her thoughts returned to the matter that had consumed her most of the night. “Patrick, before yesterday, had you by chance heard anything about this Mr. Burkett?”

The boy’s brow furrowed. “Nope, but I did a bit of thinking on it myself. Do you think he’s the one your uncle was telling Mr. Peterson about?”

“No, I don’t think so. I had wondered that, but then he visited Reverend Uncle at the wagon after meeting last night. It was obvious the two had never met. I’d thought maybe—” Morality broke off the thought with a shrug.

After they’d walked another block, past the meat market, tavern, and hotel, she asked, “Are you positively certain you heard correctly, Patrick? I’ve racked my brain, and I simply can’t imagine who Reverend Uncle has in mind for me to marry—unless he changed his mind about Reverend Simpkins.”

“Nah.” Patrick shook his head. Reaching up, he slapped the bottom of a wooden sign, sending it swinging. “Your uncle says too many bad things about the Methodists. I never did think he’d agree to Simpkins.” His brown eyes twinkling, he grinned and added, “Y’all would’ve had ugly babies, anyway, Morality. That man’s ears were way too big.”

“Patrick!”

“Well, it’s true. It worked out for the best, too. You told me you didn’t love him, and I reckon that’s important. I know my pa and mama sure loved each other. They was always kissin’ in the kitchen.”

“Were kissin’,” she corrected automatically. “I could have loved Reverend Simpkins. I know I could have.” What she couldn’t imagine was kissin’ him in a kitchen.

Morality sighed as a sense of impending doom swept over her. Reverend Uncle had seldom before shown any interest in her future. He’d always acted as if their lives would continue unchanged for years to come. He’d turned away her suitors, claiming, among other things, that she was too young to contemplate marriage. Why would he change his mind now? Had Reverend Simpkins’ proposal finally shown him the inevitability of an eventual wedding? Did he fear she’d take the matter out of his hands and elope?

The thought had occurred to her; she couldn’t deny it. But she never wanted to take such a drastic step. It would be disobedience of the most serious, sinful kind.

As her guardian, like all parents in this day and age, Reverend Uncle had the power to tell her what to do and when to do it. She might not like it, but she couldn’t change it. She was a woman, and that was reality.

Patrick dropped to one knee to fish a shiny marble from between the boardwalk slats.

Morality slowed her steps, waiting for him as she contemplated the problem she faced. Society gave men control over women; a guardian control of his ward. Under other circumstances, she might be tempted to challenge one or both of those precepts. But the fact of the matter was that her uncle enjoyed another source of power, one Morality simply couldn’t contest.

Reverend Uncle was the man through whom God had worked to give her a miracle. His were the hands that had cured her blindness. Therefore, if she chose to deny his spiritual authority by defying him in regard to marriage or any other major decision, wouldn’t that be, in effect, turning her back on her religion?

That was the way it looked to her. And turning her back on her religion was something she never, ever would do. Despite the emotions rumbling around inside her.

They continued down the street, pausing at a corner for a freight wagon pulled by a lumbering pair of oxen to pass. “You know, Patrick, I must have Reverend Uncle’s blessing for any marriage I wish to make, but until he actually presents me with a suitor, I don’t see why I couldn’t look around a bit for a man who would meet his requirements, yet still be my choice. Oh, Patrick, can you think of
anyone
of whom he might approve?”

Patrick shook his head. “Whoever you pick, he needs to be rich. That’d help more than anything.”

They walked another block in silence. Now at the town square, she gazed vacantly at the Lone Star flag hanging limply on the courthouse pole and posed the question that had hovered at the edge of her mind all morning. “What about Mr. Burkett? Do you think…?”

Patrick lifted his shoulders. “We don’t know anything about him.”

“I know a few things. He visited Reverend Uncle’s wagon last night.” She picked off the items on her fingers. “He’s wealthy. He’s not married, and he claims he wants a home and family. Judging by our conversation, he seems to be a good man. True, he has a past, but he has repented. He’s here to help the people of Cottonwood Creek.”

Patrick watched the pigeons feeding on the courthouse lawn. “Folks sure did carry on about him last night.”

Morality nodded. “Perhaps I should see what else I can learn about Mr. Burkett. It wouldn’t hurt, would it? I mean, I don’t have any other prospects at the moment. Then, if it looks like we might suit…” Her voice trailed off as she pictured him sitting at her uncle’s table. He’d been so big, so broad, so…masculine. “He does have the most wonderful blue eyes.”

Patrick batted his lashes flirtatiously as he said in a falsetto tone, “Oh, Morality, you
do
go on so.”

She made a face at him and stuck out her tongue.

He drawled, “Now there’s a sure sign of a grown-up woman ready to wed.”

Caught, Morality grinned. They both laughed aloud as they continued down the block to the intersection that led to the Marston home.

“Guess I’d best go after those handbills,” Patrick said. “What are you going to do, Morality?”

“That depends. I trust, judging by the flutter in your lashes, that your headache is better?”

He nodded. “I’m hungry now, too. Hope they remembered and there’s a plate waiting at the Marstons’.”

“I made certain of it.” Assured of Patrick’s recovery, Morality felt free to pursue the other items on her agenda for the day. “I’m headed for the mercantile. I’ll see you later, all right?”

She watched him scamper down the street and said softly to herself, “I’ll see about boots too while I’m at it.”

Right after she inquired about morning-glory seeds and Mr. Zach Burkett.

THE SCENT of vinegar assaulted Morality’s nose as she pushed open the door to Nichols Mercantile. Pausing to replace the lid on the pickle barrel, she stepped toward the back of the store where a herd of matrons milled, bawling and mooing the best bit of gossip to have hit Cottonwood Creek in years: the return of the town’s most infamous son—the Burkett Bastard.

Morality slipped behind a saddle display near the back of the store. Both satisfaction and a sense of anticipation gripped her as she turned an ear toward the group of four women. She’d known the mercantile would be the place to learn about the man whose morning-glory eyes had haunted her dreams all last night.

“He just waltzed up and took a seat in the front row,” a widow-woman swathed in black said as she fingered the fringe of her cotton shawl.

He didn’t waltz, Morality silently observed. “Sauntered” was a better word. And he didn’t exactly have a wide choice of seats; he was late to meeting. Everyone knew if a person wanted a decent seat at the back, he had to get to service on time.

Morality shook off the thought and listened as a woman in brown homespun and a poke bonnet exclaimed, “Zach Burkett back in town? I don’t believe it!”

“It’s true, Permelia,” the third matron said, adding a spool of yellow thread to the basket on her arm. “Joshua Marston’s bastard son at a Cottonwood Creek revival meeting. I saw it with my own two eyes.”

“Oh, my.” Permelia fanned her face. “Was Louise there?”

The widow sniffed. “Of course she was there! Louise Marston hasn’t missed a revival since that time she was down with the shingles years ago.”